Different Endings
by JeanHermioneSnape
Summary: On the day of the Final Battle, The Boy Who Lived died and in the world left behind three heroes – a Pureblood, a Half-Blood and a Muggle-Born – rise from the ashes of what used to be to help the wizarding world defeat Lord Voldemort once and for all.
1. Prologue

_____Disclaimer: __'Different Endings' is a fan written fiction based on the Harry Potter books. Any__ recognizable element be it character, place, name or plot belongs to J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter - everything else is mine. I make no profit from the creation or posting of 'Different Endings'._

* * *

_**Prologue**_

"I don't want anyone else to try and help." Harry said loudly, and in the total silence of the Hall his voice carried like a trumpet call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

Voldemort hissed. "Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?" He laughed while taking his eyes from Harry's and staring behind him in the mass of faces. "The Mudblood? The Traitor? Your whore?"

"Nobody," said Harry simply ignoring the jab with an almost childish looking shrug. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, remember, and one of us is about to leave for good—"

"One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taunt and his red eyes left the crowd and returned in a flash back o Harry's face, just like a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, don't you? You think a boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings could defeat me, Lord Voldemort?"

"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle they made since the beginning, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

"Accidents!" screamed Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and the watching crowd was frozen as if Petrified, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to breathe but them two. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and snivelled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people—"

"But you did not!"

"—I meant to, and that's what it did. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"

"You dare—"

"Yes, I dare," said Harry with more confidence that he felt. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

Voldemort did not speak for a long time, but prowled in a circle, and Harry knew that he was succeeding in keeping him temporarily mesmerized and at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret that he didn't.

"Is it love again?" asked Voldemort when Harry didn't jumped to break the silence that stood deafening all around the Hall, his snakelike face jeering. "Dumbledore's favourite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did nothing to stop him from falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter? And nobody seems to love you enough now to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you from dying now when I strike?"

"Just one thing," said Harry, and still they circled each other, wrapped in each other, held apart by nothing but that one final secret, that one final thing that held death in its hands and the name of the winner and looser well hidden.

"If it is not love that will save you this time," said Voldemort, "—you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both," said Harry, and he saw shock flit across the snakelike face, though it was instantly dispelled. Voldemort began to laugh, and Harry realized, not for the first time, that the sound of laughter coming from the creature before him was more frightening than his screams have ever been. It was a humourless and insane laugh, which echoed all around the silent Hall as if amplified by the castle's structure itself.

"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I— than Lord Voldemort— who has performed magic beyond what Dumbledore himself could ever dreamed of?"

"Oh, he dreamed of it," said Harry, "—but he knew more than you. He knew enough not to do what you've done."

"You mean he was weak!" screeched Voldemort through his laughter and from behind him Harry could hear Death Eaters laughing at their master's proclamation. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine momentarily!"

"No, he was cleverer than you," said Harry, "—a better wizard, a better man."

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore," said Voldemort. "—and now I will bring about yours! Say 'Good Bye' Harry Potter—"

Voldemort raised his wand, pointing it straight at the chest of his enemy and roared: "Avada Kedavra!"

Harry heard the high voice just as he too yelled his incantation "Expelliarmus!" while pointing Draco's wand forcing the red beam of magic towards the snakelike monster that faced him. And there, above their voices and the loud bang that sounded just like a cannon blast of magic meeting magic, another voice screamed at the top of his lungs: "Avada Kedavra!"

Golden flames erupted where Voldemort and Harry's rays of magic meet, at the dead centre of the circle they had been treading for minutes. Harry saw Voldemort's green jet meet his own red blood one, just as the third jet, a green, deadly and precise beam of death hit him right below the heart.

It was quiet after that, a silence so loud that it consumed all of those present as the red and green lights died into nothingness. It was the silence of death that which descended upon the castle – the silence of the death of life itself – and nobody dared to even breathe for what seemed like eons as all eyes turned and stared at the one person they have never expected to be the one to kill Harry Potter.

The sound of hurried footsteps rang loud in the eerie silence of the castle and as one, all eyes turned once again to follow Voldemort as he made his way towards the boy who lived again and again, until he finally found his end.

Harry Potter's body stood crumbled at the feet of his victorious nemeses, with legs awkwardly bended beneath his fallen torso, arms stretched out wide on both sides and vivid green eyes now lifeless and void of all that had once made them unique. Next to him, only inches away from his body, the hawthorn and unicorn hair wand that he had won weeks before from Draco Malfoy, stood still, quiet and dead just like its most recent master.

The room was still quiet, as if keeping the silence a little bit longer would somehow change or in the case of Death Eaters and other Voldemort supporters make true all the things that they had just witnessed as if in a dream.

It was Voldemort who finally and irrevocably, broke the stillness that surrounded him, his now dead enemy and the one that had made it all possible.

"He's dead," he shouted and with a flourished swish of his wand at the ground levitated Harry Potter's lifeless body and wand high into the air, where all present could see. "Your boy saviour was no match for Lord Voldemort and my faithful Death Eaters."

"No!"

"Yesss!"

"NO!"

"Harry!"

"Potter!"

"Noooo!"

By the time Voldemort finished speaking and bowed to Harry Potter's killer with a sinister smile on his snake-life face, the Great Hall was in uproar: some screamed and cried; some yelled in triumph and stamped their feet; some cursed the heavens; some cursed the person nearest them that belonged to the other side. Others, a large majority of those present, just stood rooted to the spot, tears pouring down their cheeks, words forming, ascending and then dying on their lips, too shocked to say or do anything but gape open-mouthed at the man who had won Voldemort the war.

There, under the once-upon-a-time enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, now devoid of beauty and magic, history was written in blood and tears in that memorable day of days, when the war ended, when Lord Voldemort won and most importantly when Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived died at the hand and wand of his best friend, Ronald Bilius Weasley.


	2. Harry Potter's Death Day – part I

_**Disclaimer: **__'Different Endings' is a fan written fiction based on the Harry Potter books. Any recognizable element be it character, place, name or plot belongs to J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter - everything else is mine. I make no profit from the creation or posting of 'Different Endings'._

* * *

_**Harry Potter's Death Day – part I**_

**IF ANYONE WOULD HAVE TOLD SEVERUS SNAPE**

…on that fateful day, that a year from then he would be seated at the Head Table enjoying his evening meal – the best Shepherd's Pie house-elves could make – in peace and quiet surrounded by teachers – or what passed as a teacher nowadays – and students alike he would have issued that someone a mental-healing potion and would have done some Legilimency to look for a Obliviate gone-wrong performed by Weasley's second year spell-o-tape fixed wand, because he wasn't supposed to still be around a day or even week beyond that day, never mind a full year later.

And yet here he was.

That day, the 2nd of May – the day that has since been named Harry Potter's Death Day, or in some circles (those who still opposed the Dark Lord – they were few and not as loud as they used to be, but they were still out there) Benedict-Bilius Day – was supposed to be his single best and last day on Earth. He was supposed to do his job, to tell Potter all that there was to tell and die.

Simple, elegant and beautiful much like the late Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, wanted and got for his own death. Oh, it had been anything but simple or elegant and definitely not beautiful for those who were still alive after that night in the Astronomy Tower almost two years ago – Severus included, or better said, especially for Severus – but it was what his mentor had wanted and it was what his mentor had got.

He wanted that also.

And then Nagini's fangs broke through his skin, tendons and flesh and for a minute – a long peaceful minute – Severus thought he might have it. He didn't even care that his mission was only half finished, that the Potter brat – the one he protected for longer than he wished to remember – would fail or that in the end his last sacrifice, his life, wouldn't be worth it – not like Lilly's had, not like Dumbledore's had – but he just didn't care anymore. He was too close to the end for anything else to matter anymore.

Then when he saw Potter kneel at his side, with Granger and Weasley right behind him, he was happier than he ever remembered being in his life, because it wouldn't be all in vain and he could finally die – his simple, elegant and beautiful, yet somewhat messy death.

But no, he wasn't allowed that.

Lucius fucking Malfoy just had to stick his nose in other people's perfect ending to a miserable life. He came back for him, a little after Potter died that first time in the Forbidden Forest by Voldemort's wand, dragged his more than half dead sorry arse out of the Shrieking Shack and dumped him at the feet of Poppy Pomfrey, just as the Chosen One was killed once and for all by the Traitor. And he just had to demand she fix him at wand point and threat of curses so dark not even the Dark Lord ever tied using – not that Lucius was stupid enough to use them himself, but Poppy didn't need to know that.

He was willing to die that day – hell he was happy to die – but they came running to his rescue, playing the fucking heroes and save him when he didn't need or want saving.

And here he was now – alive and well in a world he hadn't desired living in since the night Lilly had been murdered, playing the right-hand man of a maniac he hated with passion and still, after all those years, pretending to be anything but himself. No, nothing had changed on the 2nd of May the year before, not for him anyway. There was nothing better in his life now that the Chosen One was dead and there was nothing worse.

For Severus Snape there was nothing there anymore, not even death – not yet anyway – not even her. Oh, he had everything a man could ever have wanted – he was after all his Lord's favourite; a 'honour' he shared with Weasley these days – and still he had nothing at all.

Oh, how he wanted to die! How he wanted to be with Lilly again or Dumbledore or his mother or any of the friends he lost during both wars… but he couldn't. That fucking bastard – be it Lucius sodding Malfoy or Tom fucking Riddle – had took the chance to see them again and turned it to ash.

Startled from contemplating the death that never happened by the buzzing of whispers, Severus noticed students looking up at the Hall's enchanted ceiling and for a second hoped that somehow, on this completely still evening – no clouds or rain in sight – lightning would come, finally striking and granting him what he wished for the most.

He wasn't that lucky. He never was and never would be. It was like an unwritten law of nature that stated that Severus Snape was to be the unluckiest bastard alive and he was fine with it. Yet sometimes, less and less during the last year, he hoped and wished and prayed Merlin, Morgana and whoever else was listening for only a glimmer of luck in his life.

He never got it – not then – not now – not ever.

It wasn't his lightning, obvious, but a regal looking owl – Lucius Malfoy's owl to be exact – with what seemed like a large, heavy parcel strapped to its leg. It was a wonder the bloody bird managed to get off the ground with that thing.

The parcel was for him of course. Be it business; issues regarding the school or the Board of Governors; or personal; invitations to boring evenings of pompous conversation and expensive booze or a request for an off the market potion - usually the kind that respectable Potion Masters wouldn't be caught dead brewing, yet secretly brewed for the challenge they offered; Lucius Malfoy corresponded to no one at Hogwarts except for him. Not since his son decided that under the Dark Lord Regime higher education, or for that matter education in general, was nothing but a waste of time, especially compared to a life of fine liquors and women of questionable... everything.

Severus waited patiently for the bird to descend, as he scanned the faces of all those around him – students only; he could barely manage to look at his colleagues – all faithful, branded Death Eaters, these days – during staff meetings; he needn't spoil his dinner too.

The house tables - Why they were still called house tables, in an era when all students were placed in Slytherin – thou they were most certainly not all Slytherins – and when Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were non-existent, he couldn't say – were emptier than they had ever been before. Even that last school year, when some Purebloods preferred to home schooled their children, many Half-Bloods were too afraid to come back and Muggle-Borns were taken by or fleeing the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, there were more faces to look at from his place at the Head Table.

It was a desolate picture, one he wished never to witness and yet here he was: Headmaster for the second year around of an institution which used to be the last bastion of light – a school that had once stood for all that the wizarding world represented, stood now for bigotry and dark alone – and him, unable to do anything about it.

He hated it.

Dumbledore would have done more for his beloved school, Potter would have fought tooth and nail for what he considered his home, Lilly would have never accepted a faith such as this for a place that gave her so much and Granger, she would have done something – a campaign, a secret club, a brilliant project or maybe something in the lines of what Umbridge had got – and still he could do nothing at all.

All he could do was listen, obey, listen some more, scheme and plan, and hope for a day when he – or somebody... anybody – would be able to do something, to save them somehow.

With one last look at what was left of his students he dragged his attention back to the owl. It was still flying, swirling around the Head Table a couple of times before somehow managing a rather graceful landing – for a bird its size, with a package that large – next to his half empty plate.

Severus immediately untied the parcel, shooed the bird away. The small owl nibbling at his dinner shoot him a reproachful glare, ducked his hand and continued eating.

Severus scanned the heavy box for hexes, curses and all sorts of other enchantments before opening it. It was even heavier than it looked like and he found himself confused, yet not surprised, to find the package almost empty, except for a roll of parchment and a ruby coloured round shred of glass.

Taking out the glass Severus noticed that it weight slightly less than a Knut, had roughly the same dimension and some carvings of what looked like runes on the margins. Closing his fist around the small glass, he scooped out the parchment, unrolled it and started reading.

_**Severus, **_

_**Seeing that I keep sending you invitations that you scarcely if ever attend and that the First Annual Ball/Revel is only two hours away, I took the liberty of procuring an object that would guarantee your attendance to a small gathering I organised before **__**tonight's celebration**_.

_**The parcel containing the letter and the glass-coin are two components of an interesting piece of craftsmanship created by one of our mutual friends. **_

_**Do try and give Gareth a sneer-free compliment on it when you see him tonight! **_

_**Anyways, the Transporter (not quite the name I would have chosen but I presume it serves its purpose) it's nothing more than a portkey with the distinct characteristic that you needn't "Hold on!" or even be near it, to take you to your destination. Ah… and it can bypass any Anti-Travelling Wards.**_

_**I know you will be intrigued by the device and that you will feel almost compelled to take the time to study and understand it (I blame that on your mother's Ravenclaw legacy**__**), but I assure you, my friend, there will be time later. The Transporter has already**__** been**_ activated by your touch (be it on glass-coin or parcel – it doesn't matter which) and in approximately three minutes you will be portkeyed to the Traitor's Manor to await in the company of a few select others and myself for the festivities to begin.

_**As I presume you are in the middle of dinner in the Great Hall – exactly when and where I intended for the parcel to reach you – I strongly recommend that you excuse yourself for the evening before the staff has collective heart failure at your sudden disappearance in spite of the room being warded against Apparition and Protkeys. **_

_**You wouldn't want to have go back to teaching Potions again if Slughorn croaks on the Head Table, now would you? **_

_**Always your friend, **_

_**Lucius**_

_**PS: It's no use getting rid of or destroying either coin or parcel – you will still be portkeyed to the established destination. **_

Coin and parchment still in hand, Severus rose from the table, gathered the parcel and its wrapping, murmured an excuse to Amycus Carrow, Dark Arts professor and Deputy Headmaster and left the Great Hall in a swish of billowing black robes. He barely managed to get halfway to the castle's entrance before the portkey glowed bright blue and with a strong pull from somewhere below his navel he was off.

* * *

_**Author's notes:**__ 'Harry Potter's Death Day' is designed as a multi-part chapter because of how long it got when I started filling page after page with all the stuff that happens one year from the action in 'Prologue'. This chapter will have 3 or 4 parts depending on how it feels when I've done editing it. _

_**Author's Request:**__ If you got far enough to read this, use the 'Review this Chapter' button below and let me know what you think._


	3. Harry Potter's Death Day – part II

_**Disclaimer: **__'Different Endings' is a fan written fiction based on the Harry Potter books. Any recognizable element be it character, place, name or plot belongs to J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter - everything else is mine. I make no profit from the creation or posting of 'Different Endings'._

* * *

**_Harry Potter's Death Day – part II_**

**SEVERUS LANDED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARLOUR**

…with much ease. There was no fumbling with his steps, no landing on his arse or face as many did when portkeying. There was nothing but a soft thud as his feet touched the floor, a barely audible shushing sound as his robes settled around him and his graceful self, settling into his new surrounding as if he didn't just travelled from Hogwarts to Wiltshire in less than a blink of an eye.

"Look what the cat dragged in," greeted the laughter of Antonin Dolohov who, Severus notice, was only a feet or so to his right, perched up on a comfortable looking armchair. Dolohov had the same nasty smirk he always wore around Severus, the one that said 'I'm loads better than you and you know it', the one that usually made him want to throttle the idiot. "Nice work Lucius! Haven't seen his sorry arse in a while, now."

"Yeah, Severus," said Nigel Yaxley lazily from Severus's other side. "You, too important for us mere mortals, now that you have free reign of that school of yours?"

"Accio! Accio!" Severus heard Lucius's summoning charms and suddenly panic flowed through his veins. He turned around, his wand falling into his palm and a curse half way to his lips, when the sight before him made him stop.

There, hovering mid-air before him, was an empty tumbler being brimmed with rose coloured liquid from a half full bottle of Quintin Black. He discreetly slipped his wand back up his sleeve and with something akin to a smile – not that he ever smiled – and a nod towards Lucius, took the offered drink and sunk into one of the parlour's many old fashion armchairs.

Severus took a sip of the drink while regarding the other occupants of the room with narrowed eyes. To anyone looking he was simply enjoying his drink – to himself or someone with a trained eye he was scanning the room at large, taking in all with clear interest. There were many faces around the parlour – some he recognised and some he didn't – all gathered in groups, no larger than six or seven members, none interacting with anyone except those in his vicinity.

His own group was not so much different: six members in total – Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Rabastan Lestrange, Nigel Yaxley, Antonin Dolohov and himself – all talking and drinking and having a good time, none showing even the slightest interest in those outside of their group.

"What should we be drinking to this time?" asked Draco Malfoy dragging his attention back to those around him.

"To the Dark Lord's victory!" offered Lestrange lifting his half empty glass into the air, high above his head, some amber liquid – apparently they weren't all drinking Quintin Black – spilling over the rim of the glass in the process.

"To treason!" guffawed Yaxley. One by one they raised their glasses and drank a good mouthful of their drink, making different faces as the liquor made its way down their throats.

"To spies!" stated Lucius with a nod towards Severus who returned the gesture forcing a smile – well, maybe more of an upper lip curl – on his face. The others raised their tumblers and drank yet again.

Severus did neither. He needed a clear head and even though his robe's inner pocket held three Sober-Up Potion vials – he had been prepared to leave Hogwarts immediately after dinner even before Lucius's toy interfered in his plans – he knew the best way of achieving it wasn't with the help of a potion, but by abstinence or when that wasn't an option – like tonight – moderation.

"Speaking of which," said Lestrange and took another mouthful of his firewhiskey. "How's the old man doing these days? Plotting anything new from behind your chair?"

"I wouldn't know," replied Severus his eyes on his tumbler and a nastily smirk on his lips. "He's not very talkative nowadays."

"Spares you a lot of head-aches I imagine," said Yaxley finishing his drink in one gulp. He got up and made his way to the liquor cabinet for a refill. When the glass was full again, he didn't return to his seat on the couch, but turned back towards the others, leaned on the cabinet, his legs crossed at the ankles and stared at the glass in his hand deep in thought – or what passed as 'deep in thought' when it came to Nigel Yaxley.

"He was a right idiot," Yaxley went on. "thinking he could defeat the Dark Lord from the grave with Potter running around the country searching for Merlin knows what. Like that boy could defeat our Lord! Ha – as if."

They all laughed and Yaxley, loving every minute of the attention he was getting – not something he usually got – continued after a sip of his drink. "And you! You showed him, didn't you! Showed him you were never his pet. Good for you! Liberating eh – blasting that Mudbloods and Muggles lover off the tower?"

"Indeed," sneered Severus, a measured look in his eyes.

"Maybe that's why he's so silent, you know! Finally gotten in to that thick painted skull of his that no one – not even the Chosen One – is a match for Lord Voldemort's powers."

"Or still mourning Potter," offered Draco, his tumbler balanced precarious on his knee, eyes fixed on the sloshing liquid inside. "Always did wonder about those two, if they were bum chums or something. I mean – in sixth year Potter saw more of Dumbledore than he did of Weasley and Granger put together. Oh… that reminds me: To Weasley!"

Severus watched Draco snatching the glass of his knee and raising it high above his platinum-blonde head. The others followed suit.

"Maybe that's where Potter went wrong," said Lucius and from the glassy look in his eyes he was mostly thinking out-loud. "Too much time spent with Dumbledore, too little with his friends…"

Lucius voice trailed off for a second, before snatching his thoughts back. "…and that's Bilius now," he corrected in a mock voice that imitated the Traitor almost to perfection and raised his tumbler even higher. "You know he renounced his family and name."

"Right, to Bilius then," Draco snorted a laugh. "Our pride and joy…"

"Nothing but a blood traitor if you ask me," sneered Dolohov taking another sip of his drink.

"Yeah," laughed Yaxley, "nothing but a piece of shite. Who cares what he's called these days – once a blood traitor, always a blood traitor."

"Still a useful one," drawled Severus. "He did kill Potter," - he spat the name with all the venom and disgust he still felt for the boy's father; he didn't hate Harry Potter, most of the time at least, but James he will hate forever - "for our Lord, after all."

"He had some contacts in the Ministry," added Dolohov after a few seconds of silence.

"The fuck he did!" snorted Lucius. "We had people there – He had one idiot brother and a bunch of morons that bought whatever anyone sold them. At least until they didn't anymore."

"Yeah, that's right," agreed Yaxley with a look of hatred in his eyes.

Severus had to fight back a laugh at how predictable those too were: always ranting about Weasley, never doing anything about it.

"Well, we have complete control over the Ministry, so it was worth it, right? And besides, if that was enough for our Lord," Lestrange said sternly looking first Yaxley and then Lucius in the eye. "why isn't it for you? Or are you two still 'jealous'?" – he drawled the last word, smirking in his drink – "Oh, isn't this just… - what's that word again…"

"Crackbrained," offered Dolohov and gave a wheezy giggle that was drowned down by Lestrange's proclamation of: "…pathetic, just idiotically pathetic. If the Dark Lord only knew how you two regard his champion. The one who did what none of you ever could, kill Harry Potter. Tusk, tusk! He would be so disappointed."

"You wouldn't dare!" shriek Yaxley and Severus barley managed to control the laughter that bubbled up in his chest.

"I don't see you getting praised for killing the boy, Rabastan," said Lucius, his eyes filled with rage.

"Yes, well, I leave that to Bilius," drawled Lestrange. "as I didn't have the boy next to me in Azkaban for seven years or as my son's class mate… unlike others."

Severus watched Lucius sprang to his feet, his tumble crashing with a loud shattering sound on the floor, his wand ready and pointing, and sighed. It always ended this way and though it had been fun for a while watching them at each other's throats, hexes and curses flying around, it was getting just old.

"What the fuck are you implying, Lestrange?" growled Lucius.

"I would never stoop so low as to imply, Lucius, you know me."

"Then what the fuck are you saying?"

"What everybody thinks of you!"

"Why you – Sectu…" started Lucius, wand pointing directly at Lestrange's chest, the Sectumsempra curse half way up his wand, when a loud clinking sound made him stop.

They all fell quiet; as quiet as people can get, with all that breathing and swishing as they took out their wands looking around frantically; Lucius and Lestrange especially. They seemed rooted to the spot; wands trailed on each other not at the room at large as others did, rage and apprehension written on their faces. They made quite a picture; one that Severus would have loved to keep on watching if his instincts wouldn't have kicked in, forcing his attention back to the sound that still rang in his ears.

Then out of nowhere a high, cold, clear voice echoed throughout the parlour, coming from everywhere at once, as if it was the house itself that spoke. "My faithful followers!"

They all looked up, lowering their wands and beaming with excitement and delight at hearing their master's voice. Severus did the same, except for the beaming and fixed his eyes on a spot on the celling a few feet to his left. He wasn't looking really, just staring into nothingness, listening to the words without actually hearing them.

"On this day a year ago, we have entered a new era, an era that holds no Boys-Who-Lived, no Muggle-lover old fools and with us as its true rulers."

The echo of his last word rang long and high as all around him people agreed with nods or whispered concords.

"A year ago today we won a battle – a great one – yet nothing more than a battle. The war is still out there, on our doorstep and still you act as if all is how it should be. I ask you know, my faithful Death Eaters, why is that? …."

The voice rang high again and again and after a while Severus just let the buzzing of whispers, breathing and shushing drown Lord Voldemort's voice to nothing as thoughts swirled around Occlumency walls, hiding one minute and coming to surface the next.

Suddenly there was a soft clicking sound and Severus saw the parlour doors, which had been closed ever since he first arrived, opening. The voice had stopped speaking a while now – observed Severus – and conversations had gone from whispered to shouted with excitement, but at that moment, at that new sound, all noise died down and silenced engulfed the room once again.

There was a second's pause when all eyes stood fixed on the now opened door, before without another word one by one they all made their way down the hall to the room where was all was about to happen.

Severus was the last to move; watching them all proceed out of the parlour, noticing all that there was to notice; before taking a deep breath and following.

* * *

_**Author's Request:**__ If you got far enough to read this, use the 'Review this Chapter' button below and let me know what you think._


	4. Harry Potter's Death Day – part III

_**Disclaimer: **__'Different Endings' is a fan written fiction based on the Harry Potter books. Any recognizable element be it character, place, name or plot belongs to J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter - everything else is mine. I make no profit from the creation or posting of 'Different Endings'._

* * *

_**Harry Potter's Death Day – part III**_

**THE BALLROOM WAS JUST AS GRAND AND OSTENTATIOUS**

…as Severus remembered it being and that made him stop dead in his tracks only a few feet into the room. He expected it to be different somehow. Maybe reflecting Weasley's personality in some way or possible Granger's, though if he was truly honest with himself he didn't actually expect to see anything of Granger in this place. She hated it and with good reason too.

No, not Granger, but Weasley, he expected something of the brat to greet him from every room of this place, something completely Gryffindorish or even Borrowish. And it did, in all other rooms except this one.

The grand ballroom of Malfoy Manor, nowadays known as simply 'The Manor' or 'Traitor's Manor', was exactly the same as it was almost two years ago at the last revel he'd attended. The room itself was rarely used and never for anything except revels. The fact that tonight's celebration was held here was another things that unnerved Severus as he looked around the brightly light room.

The last time he was here, to the third and last revel he ever attended in his entire Death Eater career, was the night of Dumbledore's death. That night it was all just for him.

He was celebrated above all others, offered rewards and praises he never received before in his pathetic little life not from his Masters or from anyone else. It should have been the highlight of his day or year or life and but it wasn't.

He hated it all: the celebration, the laughter, the screams, the blood, the terror, but most of all that night and almost all the nights and days that followed Severus hated nothing more than himself.

His mentor, father and friend and incidentally the greatest wizard that ever lived was dead and Severus had been the one to finally do it. Grindelwald couldn't do it over fifty years prior, Voldemort either, though he had tried and tried and failed every time and then here comes him, a fucking 'Half-Blood Prince' from Spinner's End, a shabby suburb of Cokeworth and one curse later, one barely spoken 'Avada Kedavra' later Albus Dumbledore was dead and he, Severus Snape, was his murderer.

Severus hated it all that night… the praises he receive from Voldemort for his deed, the Crucios thrown left and right to punish those that had displeased their Master, Draco crawling in his own blood, screaming, crying and begging for forgiveness, Narcissa praying to anyone willing to listen for her son's life, Bellatrix crackling like mad, the Muggle girls...

There were ten Muggles in total: three for Severus as the one who had pleased his Master the most and seven for the others entertainment. He remembered nothing particular about them. Long hair – maybe, but then again they usually had it long, a fetish of Voldemort's; red-haired – no doubt about it, it was Voldemort's way of taunting him with what he knew him to desire the most; beautiful – probably, they always took the ones that caught their eye and young, much… much too young for the fate that awaited them.

And in the end none of that mattered at all. They were all dead by dawn... all by his hand; another of his Master's rewards.

He still hated himself for it, though he told himself it was better this way, better to be killed by him than by them. At least he was merciful when he did it, at least he made it as quick as he could without displeasing his Master. He told himself, that it was for the better, that it was his way of somehow saving them - too bad he didn't believe it, not then and not now.

And now, almost two years later, he was sitting in that same room, waiting for Harry Potter's Death Day festivities to be over with and for yet another revel to begin, one he will hate just as much as his last and the one before it and the one before that.

"That bastard!" growled a voice right through his thoughts.

Severus didn't need to turn to know it was Lucius nor did he need to look at the man to guess how that growl was making his statuesque features shift in that furious scrawl of his.

"Which one?" drawled Severus for entertainment purposes only or maybe for a way of distracting his thoughts for at least a while, as the bastard Lucius was no doubt referring to, stood less than ten feet away engaged in what seemed like a light conversation with Clarence Cavendish the newly installed Head of International Magical Cooperation Department.

"That bloody traitor – who else?" barked Lucius. "Look at him… acting like he owns the place…"

"Last I heard, he does."

"This is mad! That idiot doesn't deserve my house..."

"I totally concur," said Severus, hiding his smirk behind a greasy, black wall of hair.

"He shouldn't be… This is my house for fuck sake, not his!"

"I hate to differ, but it isn't yours my friend. Not anymore."

"Hmph!"

Severus tried, he really did, but before he knew it he started laughing. It was simply too amusing not to and for a minute his laughter was the only sound he could hear as Lucius rage filled eyes pierced him with the best murderous stare his friend was capable of.

"Oh, go to Hell, Severus!"

Severus made to take a step towards the refreshment table he just spotted about twenty feet to his right, when Lucius hand caught his upper arm in a death grip. He turned to his friend and was about to speak when his words died in his chest.

"My lord!"

Both men greeted and when Lucius's hand slipped away they made to kneel as per custom. Voldemort's hands gripped both of their shoulders, halting them.

"Oh, none of that tonight," Voldemort chucked and Severus fought with the bile that threaten to rise at the sound of it. "Tonight we are all here to celebrate, are we not?"

"Yes, my lord!" Lucius hurried to answer, with Severus's "Of course, my lord!" only a heartbeat later.

"And what a glorious night for celebrating it is. All of us gathered here again where everything started and ended – where I stood before you last, eighteen years ago on that Halloween night that sealed Harry Potter's faith with my own and more recently where my faithful Bilius first came to me in a time of mutual need... A perfect circle!"

"Of course, my lord!" Lucius and Severus answered almost at the same time.

"All of us here again – an interesting symbolism, wouldn't you think? Celebrating Harry Potter's Death Day in his killer's Manor…"

Severus almost smirked at the sound of teeth grinding coming from Lucius.

"Do you disagree, Lucius?" Voldemort asked and suddenly the grinding stopped.

"Of course not, my lord." said Lucius bowing as low as he could while still being upright.

"Good... It would have been a pity otherwise. How about you Severus?"

"You are most right, my lord!"

"We've come a full circle now," Voldemort chuckled. "And how many other circles there are! Can you not see them?"

Severus stared at his Master, his mind working frantically to understand, but nothing seemed to make much sense to him.

"Unrequited love," Voldemort said suddenly. "You remembered how that feels, don't you Severus?"

"My lord?"

"Just another circle, Severus... one of unrequited love and for a Mudblood at that..."

"Not all love and happiness as the Traitor let us to believe, is it now?" sneered Lucius before remembering himself. "I beg your forgiveness, my lord! I spoke out of line..."

"True, Lucius, true... but the matter stands. The Mudblood has become a distraction to my servant and I can't allow that, especially not now before his pledge."

"My Lord?" asked Severus, a sudden burst of apprehension and fear gripped at his insides at Voldemort's words.

_It's not what you think_, he kept telling himself, repeating it over and over willing himself to believe it. He didn't though. It was exactly what he thought it was. He could see it in his Master's sneering gaze and cold smile. _Merlin, no! Not her!_

Voldemort's eyes fell on him and Severus felt the now familiar consciousness probing his mind. He couldn't do anything but let him in, yet not before crushing all thoughts of her to nothingness. His Master wouldn't see her in his mind and he wouldn't be responsible for yet a death of something so important – not this time, not again.

"Tonight this circle too, will be complete. Bilius will take my mark and his Mudblood will be our entertainment." Dark Lord offered as he left Severus's mind, a nauseating smile on his face. "You two will be needed tonight."

"We will be honoured to serve you, my Lord!" said Lucius, bowing to his Master.

"Perfect… Keep Bilius busy for the rest of the celebration and don't let the girl out of your sight. It wouldn't do for her to be late to her own private party, now would it? It would be such a shame…"

Voldemort trailed off and with a swish of his Slytherin green robes with silver trimming he turned and walked away, a horrible pleased smile on his face. In his wake Severus stood rooted to the spot for the better part of a minute, his mind playing all sorts of scenarios, none of them ending well.

He needed to get her out of there, but how… apparition was out of the question, portkeys also, fighting his way through the crowd will destroy everything he had worked so hard to create and without her wand it was more or less a suicide mission for both of them.

"Not as fulfilling as getting the Manor back," laughed Lucius over his thoughts. "but I'll settle for anything that takes that bastard down one way or another. I might even have a go at the Mudblood tonight – see what Weasley's getting from her in the sack. Can you imagine it... having the great Hermione Granger at your mercy, screwing the shit out of her? Fuck, I'm getting hard!"

For once Lucius's words meant nothing to Severus. He heard them – every spiteful word of it – but nothing the blonde said registered through the storm of thoughts in his mind. He was too busy fighting the bile rising up in his throat, stopping his magic bursting outwards with every new thought of just what this night would entitle and focusing on steadying his breathing and nerves.

There were just too many images his twisted mind could conjure: Granger lying on a pool of her blood… Ganger held down by two Death Eaters while a third one raped her… Granger convulsing and crying on a floor soaked in her own bodily fluids… Granger screaming his name, begging for death… Granger magically tied to the floor while Lucius or Voldemort or any other fucking bastard grunted above her... Her body broken beyond recognizing tossed in a corner of the ballroom… Granger lying dead on the cold, dirty floor of the dungeon, because he was unable to help her.

"Not gonna happen," Severus swore under his breath before turning his eye to Lucius. "Stop fucking around and pick one, Weasley or Granger?"

"Granger," Lucius drawled a lewd smirk on his lips. "Better make that Weasley or I'll be having a hard on all night."

Severus turned and left Lucius without another word. He was in a mission, a plan already forming in his mind. He would get her out of here, even if it was to be the last thing he would ever do.

Tonight, on Harry Potter's Death Day, he will save Hermione Granger.

* * *

_**Author's Request:**__ If you got far enough to read this, use the 'Review this Chapter' button below and let me know what you think._


	5. Harry Potter's Death Day – part IV

_**Disclaimer: **__'Different Endings' is a fan written fiction based on the Harry Potter books. Any recognizable element be it character, place, name or plot belongs to J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter - everything else is mine. I make no profit from the creation or posting of 'Different Endings'._

* * *

_**Harry Potter's Death Day – part IV**_

**SEVERUS WAS ON HIS THIRD STROLL AROUND THE ROOM**

…when he finally caught sight of both Granger and the man he was looking for. Without another thought he walked to the man and even though the wizard was already engaged in a conversation strode to him, clearing his throat as he got near enough.

Gareth Carlisle gasped as his gaze settled on him, his eyes widened in surprise and delight at the sight of Severus Snape. "Ah, Headmaster Snape! What a surprise… How may I be of service, sir?"

"I was wondering if you can spare a minute of your time… I have some questions about your inventions."

The man Carlisle had been talking to bowed and retreated without a word.

"Of course, of course," said Carlisle eagerly. "I have many of them like the Anti-Cheating Parchment – that's mine you know, not Rufus Walpole's. He stole it from me a while back and because I was stupid enough not to register it with Patents and Inventions immediately after creating it, he's getting the big Galleons for it, not me. Then there was the Red Flu-Powder and the Self-Reading Book and…"

"Yes, well, I'm sure you have many of them, but the one I'm interested in is one I've experienced… Transporter, I believe it's called. I found it simply fascinating. Maybe you can tell me about it."

"Yes-yes… My baby," said Carlisle with pride.

"It's different from any portkey I ever used..." started Severus, but was cut off when Carlisle's enthusiasm got the better of him.

"That's because is so much more than a portkey. Yes, it takes you from A to B but there's so much more than it can do: bypass all sorts of wards…"

"I did notice that," chuckled Severus.

His mind was working in overdrive, devising and discarding ideas. He needed to get Granger out and that Transporter seemed like the best idea. He could send her to a secret kept location. There were still those Order safe houses that they have never used or Dumbledore's cabin out in Scotland or maybe even Sinner's End. He could send her there, make it look like she somehow escaped, throw suspicions on others or... Fuck it, he could even take the blame and ran away with her if that was what he had to do.

They could then find a way... someway of killing Voldemort once and for all. They were intelligent enough on their own, together they could do it.

Thought after thought swirled around the other two sides of his mind that worked just as avidly. One side was keeping track of the conversation - of what he said, of what Gareth Carlisle said, of what the people around them were doing - while the other one sought an opening large enough for some wordless and wandless Legilimency. It wasn't long before he found it and even less before his consciousness was sucked into Carlisle's mind.

He was him, he was Gareth Carlisle, and he was dreaming of creating a device so outstanding that everyone would see just how great an inventor he really was…

He was looking at himself in the mirror, imagining an Unspeakable badge on his chest…

He was reading an article of Rufus Walpole's Anti-Cheating Parchment…

He was before Minister Pius Thicknesse getting his invention papers in order…

He was walking down Diagon Alley, thinking of the wonders of his Transporter. Masked men came out of nowhere, surrounding him. He barley saw the light of the spell, before all went black…

He was standing before the Dark Lord explaining what the Transporter was supposed to do…

He was in his lab working on some Arithmancy equations for space travelling…

He was in the Department of Mysteries, in the Time Room, going over time jumping equation, solving them, trying to implement them in his project…

He was back in his lab, going over and over the Time Travelling Charm. It still wasn't working…

He was in his lab again hexes flying left and right, ripping his research off the wall and destroying it in frustration as the last characteristic of the device still eluded him…

He was before the Dark Lord, reporting his progress, knowing the Cruciatus will be his reward for failing again…

He was before the Dark Lord again, screaming his pain as the Cruciatus ran through his veins, hearing a crackling laugh…

He was explaining to Lucius Malfoy the workings of his device...

He was in the parlour, a box and a glass-coin in hand, tapping them with his wand and uttering the incantations: "Verto Veho Ex Hogwarts Viator Severus Snape Ut Lucius Malfoy"…

_That's it_, thought Severus, with that one little part of his brain that was not Gareth Carlisle.

He was at the First Annual Victory Ball, speaking to Severus Snape about just how much more than a mere portkey his Transporter really was…

He was again Severus Snape...

"…there's no need to hold on to it, can carry one even beyond a Fidelius Charm…"

"You don't say," drawled Severus. Now that he had the information he needed from the man, he didn't need pretend to be interested anymore. He was about to cut the man down when something he said caught his attention.

"…and it can move you through time just as well as through space."

"I beg your pardon? Time? You're telling me that your… Transporter is a Time Turner?"

"No, no… not a Time Turner, but a Time Transporter… You see, Time Turners take you back, and only back, in time by a few hours… twenty four is the longest anyone ever went back in time. My baby, the Time Transporter, goes back or forward to a specific time - no limitations."

Severus stared at the man as if trying to make sense of what he just heard, before grabbing his arm and directing him towards a balcony nearby.

"Explain!" Severus demanded in what generations of Hogwarts alumni would recognise as his dreaded Potion master voice as soon as they were out of earshot. "Start with the beginning!"

Carlisle chuckled. "I knew you'd find it interesting! Well, it's like this: I discovered a while ago that some Arithmancy time equations seemed to point to not one, but two ways of time travelling. So I did some research, got the best Arithmancyers money can buy on those calculations and before long, I had two sets of equations, one for each type of traveling."

"The first one, we all know about, is the time turning travelling. The process is simple enough: you go back in time, not more than twenty four hours and then you have to let time run its course until it gets back to the present you just left from. A nice little circle - going from now to then in a heartbeat and again to now in regular time."

_What's with all this talk about circles tonight? _Severus asked himself for the briefest of moments. He then soon forgot about it as Carlisle's explanation on time travelling captured his complete attention once more.

"Now, the second type of time traveling is time jumping. Here things get a bit complicated, but only because of the spell work and the time space manipulation behind it, the jumping part is still simple enough. So, time jumping, basically lets you pick a specific time in your time-line only and jump or get transported to it - pretty much just like a time turner would do, without the time limitation. Then comes the interesting part, as you can now jump from that new point in time be it past or future to any moment in your time line. There's no waiting for time to catch up with you again. There's no growing older faster."

"You mean someone could go back to any past event…"

"…or future," supplied Carlisle.

"Future?"

"As long it's in his time-line, yes. You can go as far as your death bed… nothing beyond that, though."

"Death bed?"

"I wouldn't advise it though… I tried it, it wasn't pretty and besides it's already changed."

"What changed?"

"My death, of course! Once I saw it, it changed, because you know… I was going to get to that point not knowing… now that I know my whole life up to that moment will be slightly different because of it and …"

"Yes, yes I get it… But how do you know it changed?"

"I went again… and again… and… always a different ending. So I decided to stick to the past or recent future… Anything more than a day or so, changes too much."

"Indeed!" Severus drawled, his mind going in too many different directions at once. Could he use such a thing? Of course he could!

"And even that changes a lot, but at least you won't tamper directly to the future."

"How much can it change?"

"Everything… One can go back - let's say one year - change some things and then come back to a slightly different present and consequently a somewhat different future… Now, if one were to go to his birth day or some other time far away into the past, the smallest of change - like squashing a bug - could create a completely different present and I don't even want to think about what something like that would do to the future."

"A bug?"

"Yes, well..." chuckled Carlisle. "You understand what I mean. The smallest of changes that far back, can change everything you ever knew."

"Indeed!"

Severus's mind started working, crating new plans and ideas. He could change everything… Save everyone... Eileen, Lilly, Dumbledore, Potter, now Granger… all of them.

"How far back have you gone?"

"All the way to a second after I was born," chuckled Carlisle. "Strange thing seeing me mum that young."

"And the changes?"

"Minimal. I kept out of the way... interacted with no one... just observed. It was my first try, you see, and decided to take the safe route."

"I see," drawled Severus, his mind even busier than before. He could change his whole life... Have a better one... Have Lilly... "What about when you came back?"

"Disturbing as Hell, I tell you that! Took me the better part of that first week just to adjust to the new set of memories."

"New set of memories?"

"Yeah... You go with your present ones, your time changes and when you come back, you're assaulted by the new ones. In the end you have two different set of memories for everything that's different now - some more different than others. For example: I've been married in one timeline, the original one - a real bitch that one. Don't know how, but never met the woman in this timeline - Good riddance, too!"

"Fascinating!"

"It is, isn't it? This baby'll be my ticket into the Department of Mysteries someday."

"Or your ticket out of your memories regarding it," said Severus. "It's a powerful tool to have, you know!"

Carlisle waved his hand as if the idea was more than absurd. "Nah… they wouldn't do that to a fellow researcher."

"You think?" drawled Severus before taking a look around for any witnesses. "I would, though!"

He then cast a wordless and wandless Silencing Charm on the man and taking his wand out and pointing it at his head, drove right back into Carlisle's mind.

This time there was no finesse to the assault, he didn't need it. The man would not be able to defend himself anyway and when all will be over, he'll remember nothing of Time Transporters or any other thing related to it.

It was more or less ten minutes later when he finally exited the man's mind, glad to have all he needed from him and even more so that nobody had discovered them. Looking around he noticed through the balcony doors the festivities still going on and there, in the one corner of the room visible from his spot, Hermione Granger standing alone by the wall.

Severus gripped Carlisle hand when the man, regained enough of his senses to try and flee, and pointing his wand at his temple again, whispered "Obliviate!". It was easy enough to erase all knowledge of the time device he created as well as the talk he just had with him on the matter and even easier to create a new memory of talking about portkeys and Ministry regulations on travelling.

"You understand why I had to register it with the Minister himself, don't you?" said Carlisle suddenly, continuing the train of the discussion Severus planted in his mind. "I couldn't let another Rufus Walpole, steal my work again, now could I?"

"Indeed," said Severus a smirk on his lips. "Now, if you excuse me… the Dark Lord assigned me a task for tonight and I have neglected it enough to satisfy my curiosity."

"Of course, of course, it was a pleasure, Headmaster!"

"Yes it was," retorted Severus and made his way back to the ballroom with all the memories the man used to have regarding Time Transporters now as his own, leaving a perfectly obliviated Gareth Carlisle on the balcony.

Nobody will notice a thing.

He will make his time travelling trip tonight, but for now he would do as his Master asked and keep an eye on Granger, because if everything went as it should, this could very well be the last he would see her as she was now. He would remember of course, but that was hardly the same. No, he would waste some more time - he had all of it at his disposal anyway - to just look at her, to remember her exactly how and who she was now, his beautiful secret lover.

* * *

_**Author's Note: **This is the last part of the 'Harry Potter's Death Day' chapter which had with approximation around 9000 words (much too much in my opinion for just one chapter). If I ever get into chapters this long be sure I'll post them just like this one in several parts._

_**Author's PS: **I would love some help from you guys with one of the next chapters: Severus will be jumping back in time to fix something from his past, to save somebody's life. When would you want him to jump?  
_

_03/20/1976 - The day Eileen Snape was killed by Tobias Snape _

_04/11/1980 - The day Sybill Trelawney makes the prophecy about Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort_

_10/31/1981 - The day Lord Voldemort kills Lilly and James Potter and tries to kill baby Harry Potter_

_06/08/1997 - The day Severus kills Albus Dumbledore _

_05/02/1998 - The day Harry Potter is murdered by Ronald Weasley_

__/_/_ A completely different time (please tell me which)_

_**Author's Request:**__Let me know what your answer is _using the 'Review this Chapter' button below.


	6. He Would Never Have That Again

_**Disclaimer: **__'Different Endings' is a fan written fiction based on the Harry Potter books. Any recognizable element be it character, place, name or plot belongs to J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter - everything else is mine. I make no profit from the creation or posting of 'Different Endings'._

* * *

_**He Would Never Have That Again**_

**HERMIONE GRANGER, THE KNOW-IT-ALL THIRD OF WHAT USED TO BE THE GOLDEN TRIO,**

…stood in the farthest corner from where all were gathered, leaning against the wall, looking around the room, taking in all the faces that surrounded her. She seemed lost, Severus noticed, and defeated, and nothing compared to the girl she once been.

She wasn't the girl who constantly waved her hand during classes, who scored highest on her OWLs, who lectured in that bossy way of her anyone that she found lacking, who fought Death Eaters when she had been only sixteen, who had survived Bellatrix's Crucio's or had jumped onto a dragon's back on only an inkling.

She wasn't the woman he last saw only a fortnight ago either.

She was different somehow from the one who comforted him between the sheets, who kissed him with so much burning passion he sometimes wondered how was it that they hadn't both turned to ash a long time ago, who felt like the softest of silks to his touch or the one who fucked like the best of whores and looked like a Goddess while doing it.

She was less than that: less than her past school girl persona, less than the brainy third of the once Golden Trio – saviours of the wizarding world, less than the woman whose body he worshiped… she was just less… less than anything.

As Severus half circled the room, and finally took his place, leaning on the wall opposite from Hermione Granger, in a spot shadowed enough to not be disturbed by idiots, still open enough to keep his eyes trailed on her, his mind wandered off to the first time he saw the girls after the war.

_It was a couple of months after Potter had died and the Dark Lord got his brand new world – complete with an Azkaban filed with Muggle-Borns, an all Pureblood society – with minor exceptions – and a perfect cover-up story for all that had happened during the war – Dumbledore and Potter were evil, Voldemort and his Death Eaters were simply misunderstood – when Severus first saw Hermione Granger. _

_He noted how strange it was, seeing her like that, a prisoner in a house she probably hated – and with more than enough reasons to – forced next to a man she once felt friendship and love for, that had now turned into her jailer, living in a world she fought so hard to prevent from ever becoming a reality._

_She didn't belonged in that place or that world or next to the piece of shite, and yet there she was, perched on a ruby red sofa, dressed in a Gryffindor, red and gold, dress robe, forcing a blood red lipstick to smile in her stead with him right there to her right. _

_To Severus she seemed much too alone; alone in a room full of people, surrounded by eyes that moved as she moved, under scrutiny every second of every hour; and somehow, for some unknown reason, he cared enough for a moment to think it as wrong. _

_She didn't deserve this. Not the life she was living and definitely not the world she was living it in. And he, that backstabbing bastard definitely didn't deserved her. _

That night he had dreamed of the girl for the first time in what soon after their second meeting had become almost a nightly routine.

The second time he had seen her had been on Halloween, when Voldemort held one of his formal gatherings to celebrate the Potters deaths - clearly not Severus's favourite night. In fact there had been times he had to bite the inside of his cheeks in order to keep his temper in check, when some idiotic Death Eater or Voldemort supporter would toast to 'yet another dead Mudblood whore' referring to Lilly or 'hope that one's gonna be next' glass raised towards Granger.

It was then, at that gathering, after hearing one too many toasts like that, that he approached her for the first time – Weasley had somehow drifted away leaving her alone in one corner of the small ballroom. Severus didn't know why he went to her – not at the time and not later, not even now – but he had.

As he had approached her he remembered noticing just how different she was.

_From afar she had still looked like herself, but as he got closer, only a few feet away from her, it had been like looking at her, truly looking, for the first time._

_She was all that a plastic doll was supposed to be: beautiful in a cold, unfeeling way, eyes deader than those on a corpse, skin sallower that parchment scrolls and a face so sad it made his non-existent heart shatter glue back and shutter again._

_And then her eyes snapped up, her gaze piercing his for an instant before shyly moving away. She scanned the room once, twice, three times, before letting her lifeless caramel eyes fell on his once again._

_He, too, stared long and hard, hoping to find at least a glimmer of life in her eyes. _

_He thought it to be useless until the most incredible and completely unexpected thing happened. She smiled and it wasn't the smile she had plastered on her face sporadically throughout the night, but a true smile, the kind that enveloped the entire face - even her eyes,__suddenly alive,_ were smiling at him. 

_"Miss Granger," he greeted her with a small nod. "I trust you are well?"_

_Her smile only grew bigger as she took in his words as if they were all she had needed to come back to the living, because she did… She looked alive again; still much too thin and too pale, still not the 'her' he remembered but alive._

_For a while neither of them spoke. _

_"I saw them," the girl replied suddenly startling Severus from his contemplation of the differences between the girl that had once been his student and the one that stood now before him. "Right before they caught me… in Dumble – sorry, your office. I saw them… I took them… I have them right here…" She lifted her hand to her head, her index finger barely touching her forehead. _

_"I always thought there was something we didn't know," she continued after a deep breath. "I could feel it, almost. I simply knew, that you haven't… I never told… Who could I tell? I don't have who to talk to, anymore… I don't have Harry – you know, I think I now understand a little of what you felt when she died."_

_When she finally stopped talking, Sever just started at the girl for the longest of times, thinking of all the implications of what she had said, imagining scenarios that didn't implied the girl talking about what he thought that she did, but it was useless. He couldn't convince himself that he was reading too much into it, not when her eyes, her even more alive eyes, now that she seemed to have taken a burden off her chest with her babbled speech, were spelling it all out for him. _

_She knew all… had seen all… and said nothing._

_She could have saved herself – maybe, somehow, but he doubted it. He remembered the night Weasley had pleaded for her life. She couldn't have saved herself, not when the Dark Lord decided she was the way to keep Weasley in check. Nevertheless, she could have done something, negotiated something, anything – but she didn't._

_Hermione Granger knew all that there was to know about him and she told no one._

_"I'm sorry, professor!" she said again after a rather long time spent in complete silence. "I would give them back… but… I don't know how."_

_"Just like any other memory, Miss Granger," he responded, unwillingly turning to his lecturing mode. "put your wand's tip to your temple and…"_

_"Oh… I can't then… I'm sorry, but I don't have a wand."_

_"I beg your pardon?"_

_"I'm not allowed a wand," she said slightly louder than a whisper a note of utter defeat in her voice. And then suddenly she scolded her features back to that impassive look she wore earlier. _

_"There you are, love!" Ronald Weasley's voice come out of nowhere as an explanation for the change, bursting the bubble the two had somehow erected around them. Severus kept his eyes on the girl for a little while longer, completely ignoring the voice and his owner, before nodding to her, turning and leaving._

"Snape!" Weasley's voice yanked him out of his memories, forcing him to return to the present place and time. It was still May the 2nd, still a year after Potter's death and he was still in the Traitor's Manor celebrating the day the bastard betrayed his best friend with a behind his back "Avada Kedavra".

"Weasley," Severus drawled a nasty sneer on his lips.

He had no stomach for the Traitor on regular bases, nor did he have much love for the idiot when he had been his student either, but right now, when these memories and glimpses of his soon to be former lover, where the only things keeping him form rushing out of the Manor and into the past, he barely had the restrain needed not to hex the bastard.

"It's Bilius…"

"What do you want… Weasley?"

"A potion," Weasley sighed dejectedly and Severus couldn't help but smirk. "I need a potion…"

"Oh, what joy!" Severus sneered. "So, Weasley, what will it be this time? Draught of Peace again or maybe some more Felix Felicis or –I know – how about some Baruffio's Brain Elixir?"

"Shut it, Snape… what I need is a…"

"What you need is to learn to brew your damn potions yourself. I'm not your Potions Master..."

"But you are his," Weasley sneered.

"Yes, Weasley, and his alone!"

"Bilius!" a cold drawling voice came suddenly from Severus's right cutting off the reply Weasley was opening his mouth to give. "Severus!"

They both turned just in time to see Rabastan Lestrange striding towards them, a bone chilling smile on his thin, barely there, lips and a group of Hogwarts former students on his toe: two Slytherins Jeremy Reekes and Livia O'Grady, a Hufflepuff Connor Hipworth, a Gryffindor Liam Worme and a Ravenclaw Angela Beardsley.

Severus immediately catalogued the information for later use – this was the first time he saw them after they graduated and though he knew of their families affiliation with the Dark Lord he had hoped, against hope apparently, that they would stay clear of it – before nodding to his fellow Death Eater.

"Rabastan!" he greeted over Weasley's sneered "Lestrange".

"These," Lestrange said, his yet too thin arm, after years spent in Azkaban, pointing to the five Purebloods that stopped a couple of steps to his right. "will be taking our Lord's Mark tonight… the same as you…"

Weasley moved his eyes to each of the future Death Eaters ogling them with something akin to contempt. "You," he said as his eyes felt on Liam Worme. "were in Percy's year, right?" Worme nodded, but didn't dignify the brat with an answer.

"…as such," Lestrange went on as if the boy had never spoken out of turn, though he did narrow his eyes in threat at Weasley. "you've been assigned to me." The disgusted look Lestrange shoot Severus, said more than words could ever had, just what he thought of that particular assignment.

"What's that mean?"

"It means," Lestrange drawled, "that until you get the Mark, you'll do what I say, when I say, how I say… no questions and no refusals."

"Oi, I'm not…" started Weasley to say, but Lestrange ignored him, turning his back on him and giving Severus a roll of the eyes. "Was I ever that much of a dolt?"

"Only until a second ago, when you asked that question," smirked Severus. "Now you're worst."

"Hilarious! What can I say…" drawled Lestrange.

"Nothing that imbecilic, I hope."

"Screw you!"

"I don't swing that way, Rabastan, you know that!" smirked Severus.

Lestrange shook his head a couple of times a mirthful smirk on his lips, before turning to Weasley again. "Now, be a good little pup," he smirked as Weasley's cheeks started growing red with either embarrassment or anger, while Severus had to cover his laugh with a slightly off cough. "and follow the pack, back to the parlour."

Just as Weasley made to talk, probably itching to say something about the tone, Lestrange tuned again towards Severus, a serious look on his face. "Our Master has a message for you. He said you're to take care of his," Lestrange pointed over his shoulder to where Weasley stood. "Mudblood… Lucius is needed elsewhere."

Severus nodded and made to respond, when suddenly Weasley's cry of "Hermione!" made him stop. "What's this about Hermione? She's coming with me, you know the rules. She's always with me."

Lestrange rolled his eyes again, before turning and sneered at Weasley over his shoulder. Severus didn't need to actually see the sneer; it was loud and clear in his tone; though he did and from the snickers coming from his former students, minus Weasley, they saw it too. "Your whore is going nowhere with you."

"But…"

"But nothing, boy, she's staying right here where Severus can keep an eye on the filth."

"Don't call her that," snapped Weasley, his cheeks turning an even darker shade of red than before.

"Call her what," boomed Lestrange interrupting whatever the boy was going to say. He had his wand already drawn, yet well hidden in the folds of his robes and pointed towards Weasley. "filth… or slut… or whore? Why wouldn't I? That's what she is… a fucking whore… nothing but a filthy, disgusting Mudblood! Though I wouldn't mind a go or two…"

"She's…" tried Weasley again, his own wand making an appearance. The idiot had no regard for discretion, Severus noted. Even before the boy's wand was high enough to point at Lestrange's chest their side of the room had already turned its attention towards them.

"What? Your… girlfriend?" laughed Lestrange, the group of soon to be Death Eaters behind him joining in. "Is that what you think? Open your eyes, boy! That fuck's nothing, but a whim the Dark Lord gave you permission to indulge in… Well, not anymore…"

"What…"

"Oh, speak in complete sentences, Weasley," barked Severus, by now on the verge of raging out and hexing one or both of them. Weasley was simply too much of an idiot, no matter what he had become during the last year, and Lestrange was getting on his nerve with all the name calling. "or shut the fuck up. Merlin you're an imbecile! Do you want it spelled out for you? You go with Lestrange, she stays with me."

"She's mine!" yelled Weasley suddenly, his wand jerking towards Severus for only a second before pointing it back on Lestrange. "Mine, and she's staying with me, and you'll respect her."

"Just go, Ron!" Came Hermione Granger's utterly defeated voice. All three men spun around at the sound, only to see a broken ex-Princess of Gryffindor walking towards them, her bright red robs long enough to brush over the floor. She looked more like a child at that moment, than Severus ever remembered her looking.

Severus tried – he could swear on Merlin, Dumbledore, Potter and the Dark Lord all at once, that he tried – but couldn't scold the shocked and completely dumfounded expression when their eyes meet. Her eyes screamed pain and despair and giving up.

Hadn't he looked at her only a moment ago?

Of course he did, and she was sad and lost and without hope, but not like this. No, something had happened and he was sure it wasn't Lestrange's words – she heard them daily – and it sure wasn't Weasley tantrum either. _So what the fuck happened?_

"Hermi…" started Weasley, but was again cut off by Lestrange's: "You should listen to your, filthy slut, boy!"

With that Lestrange pointed his wand at the boy, whispered "Imperio!" and Weasley was finally walking towards the door, Lestrange and the group of Hogwarts former students following right behind him.

Severus's eyes were drawn at the girl – no, woman – that stood before him. She was still beautiful – _She always is_, he mussed – a beautiful plastic doll that had seen too much, face too much and finally had enough. She was barely keeping herself from crumbling as she stood.

"What's wrong?" he whispered after taking a barely noticeable glance around and confirming that nobody was paying them any attention. "What hap…"

"Malfoy told me about tonight!" she sighed and at that moment's Severus resolve almost broke. He wanted to make her feel better – he had done it before – but right now, right here it was impossible.

No, he couldn't take her in his arms and kiss her until she gasped for air or pin her to the nearest wall and thrust into her heat again and again, until she forgot where and who she was, until she forgot all of her problems. He couldn't even touch her without arousing suspicions.

He couldn't do any of that and for the first time since Legilimencing Carlisle's mind and finding out about the Time Transporter, reality finally crushed down on him.

He would never do any of that again.

Never again touch her, kiss her and feel her respond, never feel her soft skin under his rough hands, hear her whimpers as he touched spots that left her as if hit by the Ossio Dispersimus spell, never slide into her, hear her groan at the contact, feel her velvety walls contract around him as she yelled to the heavens his name…

He would never again be the one to possess her, to mark her, to make her beg and scream, to hold her and kiss her and wake up next to her after those Earth shattering orgasms that made him go blank.

He would never have her again, because he would change everything and no matter how much he told himself it was just sex, just a way of screwing with Weasley while getting a little pleasure in exchange, only a way of finding release, that she was only a vessel for his seed; the truth was 'just sex' with Hermione Granger had been the only thing still keeping him sane since that second time he saw her after the war, when he first had her.

And he would never have that again!

* * *

_**Author's Note: **__God, I've never expected any answers to my (I don't even know how to call it) poll, I guess, about what event from Severus's life you would like him to change, and I want to thank you for every one of your answers._

_**aidy, articcat621, laoops, Allyll, JeniDRalph - **thank you guys so, so, so much..._

_**Author's PS1: **__I haven't yet decided what he'll change (I have more than one idea) with his time travelling, but I did decided when he'll go - there will be more than one time-stop for Severus during the following next chapters, where we'll get the chance to meet some people from his past, make some interesting deductions about time travelling and have a bit of a revelation on the whole Voldemort not killing the Boy-Who-Lived thing._

_**Author's PS2: **__Regarding Hermione in Severus's life you'll just have to wait and see (I'm waiting and seeing right there next to you) because I have several ideas of how things should go after Severus's return - I don't know yet how will it be. What I do know, though, is that they're gonna be together sooner or later. _

_**Author's PS3:**__ Keep on letting me know of your choice on when/to what should Severus jump back in time to..._

_The day Eileen Snape was killed by Tobias Snape_

_The day Sybill Trelawney makes the prophecy about Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort_

_The day Lord Voldemort kills Lilly and James Potter and tries to kill baby Harry Potter_

_The day Severus made the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy (added after reading __**JeniDRalph's **__review)_

_The day Severus killed Albus Dumbledore_

_The day Harry Potter was murdered by Ronald Weasley_

_A completely different time (please tell me which)_

_**Author's Request:**__ Let me know what your answer is using the 'Review this Chapter' button below._


End file.
